Travis Thompson comments in “The Business of Tax: Big Data Is for Practitioners, Too” for Tax Notes

December 2018

Tax professionals should start preparing to adapt big data techniques in their practices in a similar fashion to how the IRS has been using big data in investigations, according to some practitioners.

“The IRS is changing dramatically, and as tax practitioners we need to also evolve in how we represent clients and how we . . . understand our clients’ digital footprint,” Travis W. Thompson of Sideman & Bancroft LLP said December 15 at the American Bar Association’s National Institutes on Criminal Tax Fraud and Tax Controversy in Las Vegas.

That means knowing what clients are posting on social media, as well as what sorts of digital transactions they are engaging in.

Thompson pointed out that taxpayers’ digital footprints are already appearing in tax cases…